Handheld Recorders Get a Grip on the Market

In the old days, peering into the world of film and audio production could be an intimidating, exotic experience. There were big shoulder-strapped tape machines, strange-looking microphones, and audio techs following around with military-looking monitoring devices. Ambitious musicians, on the other hand, bought tabletop multi-track machines and scrounged together microphones to record practices. Most of them would simply find an old tape recorder like the ones their high school band director used for auditions. Even with the emergence of laptops and Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software, users have often gravitated toward product downloads and online purchasing for products like audio interfaces.

The room for an MI dealer’s influence wasn’t great.

Nowadays, a new generation of recording devices that boast unprecedented levels of portability, features, and ease of use has opened up a range of consumers to both MI retailers and suppliers.

Led by manufacturers like Zoom, Roland, and Tascam, these handheld digital recorders (or field recorders) have helped grow the Pro Audio market and solidified a healthy MI presence for groups of amateur filmmakers, podcasters, and music educators. Markets that used to seem worlds apart are now converging on the same shelf for dependable equipment.

The numbers look good. Sweetwater Sound’s VP of merchandising, Phil Rich, says that growth in handheld recorders is outpacing growth in Sweetwater’s overall pro audio market by nearly 30 percent. The reason is simple. “I’d look at that figure and say that people are making a choice,” says Rich. “The quality is so good now. That’s being recognized by customers and that accounts for its popularity.”

Industry analysts MI SalesTrak concur. “When we look at the handheld market, we see growth in unit sales up 2.6 percent YTD over 2013,” says SalesTrak president Jim Hirschberg.

That’s all great news for MI, and retailers would be wise to look into the audience-expanding powers of this quickly-evolving product.

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

Giving the masses the ability to record isn’t a new thing, of course. Students once actually dragged reel-to-reels to college lectures, and budding engineers pack up laptops and interfaces in their car trunks to this day. But a few major technological leaps enabled handheld recorders to genuinely compete in the market.

Roland VP Paul Youngblood says that his company’s R-09 product was able to take advantage of a leap forward in battery technology, an in-house approach to circuit design, and a good deal of institutional knowledge gained from their success with early hard disk units like the VS-880 and BR-8 multitrack recorders.

“Since we have custom VLSI and LSI circuits (which cost us a fortune to develop), we could contour our products to those,” says Youngblood. “That’s one of the reasons we were able to take that original VS technology and put it into a basically 2-inch by 5-inch format with a stereo recorder.”

Youngblood notes that battery improvements were also important – what good was a portable device that you could only use for 30 minutes?

Zoom North America CEO Scott Goodman, points out a few other important changes in the evolution of Zoom’s “Handy” series, which have come to dominate the market. “Improving noise floor, sound pressure level, our mic elements, and mic preamps – it’s the integration of these improvements that define our latest recorders,” he says. “We also have had a few ‘eureka moments,’ such as the idea of designing interchangeable mic capsules [beginning with last year’s H6].”

But the one pivotal advance that everyone agrees on is the emergence of the SD card. Tascam, who had been making professional grade recorders that utilized tape media for years, jumped at the chance to use SD cards.

Marketing manager Jeff Laity describes it as a revelation. “The SD card made it possible to make a recorder that was possible to just keep in a backpack all the time in case you come across something that you want to record. They’re small, they’re reusable far beyond the ability of tape, and they’re affordable. “

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Yet still, the type of success these diminutive products would enjoy was hard to foresee without paying close attention to another market – namely, digital video. At the same time as MI sector companies were perfecting their pocket-sized digital recording tech, camera manufacturers like Canon and Nikon were breaking new ground in quality consumer video technology with new DSLR cameras, which were allowing amateurs to record video with unprecedented resolution.

“Audio for video has been the number one factor,” says Goodman. “Creators are demanding much better audio to define their video work.”

Before manufacturers had caught on, inventive users had realized they could couple their new field recorders with those videos for remarkably good results.

“Some things are intentional, and others happen by accident,” says Goodman. “But when good accidents happen, hopefully you recognize them quickly and you begin seeing opportunities. We introduced the original H4 about eight years ago and we started seeing people use it in so many ways we never thought about. We said there’s something here and this deserves laser focus.”

Sweetwater’s Rich agrees that the rise in the segments’ popularity was, in a sense, crowdsourced. “People have really figured out that this recorder, which most people ten years ago thought were for meetings or recording someone’s speech, now has changed to be all about high quality audio, period, really quickly and easily.”

Machines like the Zoom H5, H6, and the Roland R-26 can attach to a DSLR via hot-shoe mount (or can be attached to a tripod). Tascam has similar functionality in its DR-40 unit, but also makes a more dedicated audio unit designed specifically with a DSLR’s Line-In jack in mind: the DR-60D includes an attenuation control to adjust output levels, ensuring audio never overloads a camera’s circuit, as well as “Slate” button that effectively marks both audio and video files, making syncing a snap in post-production.

A MARKET OF CONTENT CREATORS

The underlying driver here is that more people than ever are picking up tech gadgets and eagerly exploring media. Even for filmmakers who’ve never picked up a guitar, a selection of easy-to-use recording tools now makes the MI world an attractive destination.

“It’s an all-in-one solution,” says Laity. “There are no cables or jacks that you need to plug in and nothing you can do wrong. You just hit the record button twice and it starts recording with built-in mics. It’s made to be simple for anyone to use whether it’s a music teacher recording auditions, rehearsals, whatever.”

The SD card, along with the adaptable file formatting options available, means that the tools are workable for pros and hobbyists of a variety of backgrounds. “It used to be that [the recorded audio] was on tape or some kind of removable drive and you had to somehow get it into the computer via some slow mechanism,” says Rich. “Now you just pull out the SD card, put it in your Mac, and import it into Pro Tools and then, bam – you’re working with it instantly. That side of it has gotten so much better.”

At the same time, Laity notes that traditional MI consumers are finding this stuff essential, as well. Since videos aren’t out of reach for bands anymore and YouTube emerges as the primary source for new music, they’re becoming more important again. “I think that for the younger generation, it’s gone from videos being really important in the ‘80s to nonexistent for awhile and back to where you really need a video to go with your song,” he says. “Otherwise, how are you going to share it? Not on YouTube? Video is a big way of how bands interact with fans.”

Camera companies have noticed the trend toward simplicity as well – on top of scads of lens accessories popping up for iPhones, everyone in most markets has noticed the success of GoPro cameras, which have infiltrated everything from MI and electronics shops to sporting goods. It’s no coincidence that Zoom released a more feature-heavy version of the GoPro formula – the Q4 – last winter.

THE PRICE WAR

However, some worry about the growing momentum toward not just smaller devices but smaller price tags, too. The competition might be a little too steep. Although unit sales rose this year, SalesTrak notes a decrease in actual revenue. “The average price per unit is falling,” says Hirschberg. “Which depresses dollar sales, which is actually lower YTD.”

So while chasing lower price tags and beginner customers may provide growth in volume, some believe the smart money is on maintaining high audio standards.

“Our strength is in audio and that’s where our unique talents are,” says Laity. “So that’s really what we’re concentrating on – better audio products.”

Roland also boasts a corporate culture focused on innovation, which explains in a way their loyalty to the R-26. “It’s unfortunately become very price-conscious in the low-end of the market,” says Youngblood. “You can buy handheld recorders for $99 and up. That’s very competitive. That’s one of the reasons we came out with the R-26. We do fight the price fight with the R-05, but we talked and decided to come out with more of a professional recorder.”

NEW DIRECTIONS

In any case, the merging of the audio and video markets (as well as the introduction of accessible, high quality audio to markets like education and podcasters) has resulted in some genuinely new business. As the market for dedicated multitrack machines fades away, that’s something both manufacturers and retailers can applaud.

“It does feel like new business,” says Laity. Though the DAT market technically covered the same functional ground, Laity points out that it was never as accessible as the digital handhelds of today. “I think a lot of filmmakers who are doing the DSLR thing are coming into it for the first time. And there was never really a small, simple recorder like this for schools and musicians before.”

Rich adds that “the field recorder stuff just merges so well with DAWs nowadays. The full DAW with hardware is becoming very rare now.”

Goodman says he looks to MI retailers, photo retailers, and his R&D departments for new innovations.” Our dealers have played a huge role in these products’ success,” he says. “B&H Photo [New York City] were the first to discover the potential with video users. Without them it would have taken much longer for that trend to develop. Many others have also recognized unique applications.”

So while manufacturers introduce new features to this thriving market, customers and retailers are still pushing the limits of what can be done with less hardware. Just 15 years ago, it would have been tough to imagine a machine with multitrack capability, built-in guitar effects, and XLR inputs that fit in your hand. Today, that’s old news, as even newer tech begins to sprout up that turns phones and tablets into a stereo recorder with one simple attachment. IK Multimedia, Rode, Apogee, Zoom, and even Tascam are on that already.

In short, the recording world is shifting fast, and retailers should expect to see an increased mixing of pro audio, film, and software markets in the future. The handheld market already seems positioned for that evolution, though. “I think handhelds are adding very nicely to the current DAW market and the tablet market already,” says Rich. “You can drop any audio into anywhere these days, so I think field recorders are making all of those devices more fun to use.”